Motion Tennis for iOS does its best Wii impression using AirPlay

While we’ve been examining Apple and Google as it relates to gaming, another company has been working behind the scenes to turn your iPhone and Apple TV into a Nintendo Wii, of sorts. That company is called Rolocule Games, and it just launched Motion Tennis for iOS — a game that will probably draw a lot of comparisons to the tennis game inside Wii Sports.

The game works just as that Wii title does, as the player swings his or her iPhone in order to make the player on screen swing. The game uses the iPhone’s accelerometer in order to determine how the player is holding the iPhone and, in turn, translates a swing and hit into a normal shot, a slice or a lob. There are a couple of different game modes, including multiplayer, which lets you pair another iPhone and play one-on-one or doubles against the game’s AI players.

In my own use of AirPlay, whether in games or apps, there has always been some noticeable lag. That is no different with Motion Tennis. You’ll need to compensate for the delay by swinging a bit before you want your player in the game to swing. When compared to the almost instantaneous response you get from your Wii and the Wii Sports tennis game, the lag sucks some of the fun out of playing.

That AirPlay delay, plus its taxing effect on a mobile device’s battery life, are the main reasons I’d prefer native apps on the Apple TV as opposed to apps and games mirrored from an iOS device. I don’t know which route Apple plans on taking if gaming finally comes to the Apple TV, but Motion Tennis does a pretty good job demonstrating that AirPlay isn’t prepared to handle it. Apple will either need to speed it up or resort to native apps.

Motion Tennis is available right now and costs $7.99. Amusingly, the app is also compatible with iPads, though I can’t recommend trying to play this game using a tablet. If Wiimotes can be sent through a TV screen, what do you think an iPad would do?

(h/t AllThingsD)